Posted on 09/06/2001 9:41:07 AM PDT by Ada Coddington
New Evidence of Early Humans Unearthed in Russia's North
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Stone tools, animal bones and an incised mammoth tusk found in Russia's frigid far north have provided what archaeologists say is the first evidence that modern humans or Neanderthals lived in the Arctic more than 30,000 years ago, at least 15,000 years earlier than previously thought.
A team of Russian and Norwegian archaeologists, describing the discovery in today's issue of the journal Nature, said the camp site, at Mamontovaya Kurya, on the Usa River at the Arctic Circle, was the "oldest documented evidence for human presence at this high latitude."
Digging in the bed of an old river channel close to the Ural Mountains, Dr. Pavel Pavlov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Dr. John Inge Svendsen of the University of Bergen, Norway, uncovered 123 mammal bones, including horse, reindeer and wolf.
"The most important find," they said, was a four-foot mammoth tusk with grooves made by chopping with a sharp stone edge, "unequivocally the work of humans."
The tusk was carbon-dated at about 36,600 years old. Plant remains found among the artifacts were dated at 30,000 to 31,000 years.
Other archaeologists said the analysis appeared to be sound. But they cautioned that it was difficult, when dealing with riverbed deposits, to be sure that artifacts had not become jumbled out of their true place, and thus time, in the geologic layers. They questioned whether the discoverers could reliably conclude that the stone tools were in fact contemporary with the bones.
Citing these concerns, Dr. Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said: "The authors may be right, or they may not be. I just can't judge it."
But in a commentary accompanying the article, Dr. John A. J. Gowlett of the University of Liverpool in England wrote, "Although there are questions to be answered, the artifacts illustrate both the capacity of early humans to do the unexpected, and the value of archaeologists' researching in unlikely areas."
The discoverers said they could not determine from the few stone artifacts whether the site was occupied by Neanderthals, hominids who by then had a long history as hunters in Europe and western Asia, or some of the first anatomically modern humans to reach Europe.
In any case, other archaeologists said, the findings could be significant.
If these toolmakers were Neanderthals, the findings suggested that these human relatives, who became extinct after 30,000 years ago, were more capable and adaptable than they are generally given credit for. Living in the Arctic climate presumably required higher levels of technology and social organization.
"We've already been learning that Neanderthals were very adaptable people," said Dr. Fred H. Smith, a paleoanthropologist at Northern Illinois University who specializes in Neanderthal studies. "I think that we have underestimated what the Paleolithic people were capable of."
If they were modern humans, then the surprise is that they had penetrated so far north in such a short time. There has been no firm evidence for modern humans in Europe before about 35,000 years ago. It had generally been thought that the northernmost part of Eurasia was not occupied by humans until the final stage of the last ice age, some 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, when the world's climate began to moderate.
Dr. Gowlett said the new findings indicated that the Arctic region of European Russia was extremely cold but relatively dry and ice-free more than 30,000 years ago.
"The results should also rekindle debate about the effects of the climate on the movements of early human populations," Dr. Gowlett wrote.
Does this apply to paleo-conservatives as well?
An interesting question is why would humans choose to live in such a harsh enviroment?
As an aside, I was reading through some Choctaw legends last night, and came across an interesting reference to pale faced "giants" that the original Choctaw met upon first arriving in the South. In light of recent speculation on the very first, possibly Caucasian native Americans, very intriging. The Choctaw say that these people were well on their way to dying out-caused by disease-upon the Choctaw's arrival. Perhpas some sickness carried over by new immigrants?
Bible says that when humankind was forced to vacate the Garden, they went to less hospitable places and had to work for a living.
The intriguing question is why cold, dry Siberia was a more attractive place to live than East Africa which couldn't have been *that* overcrowded.
Scripture describes the human-making process as first getting a glob of mud and breathing life into it. Breath or wind (Gr. pneumos) is equated with spirit, so I figure the first human is the first hominid that had spirit breathed into him by the Elohim.
Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Ge 11:7-9
The Indians believed in a God to even though they didn't have access to the Bible til Columbus arrived here and God apparently let Columbus run roughshod over them in His name!.
So here we are today and we are praying for God to deliver us from this evil we face but yet the tide marches on. People think that by believing in God they will be delivered and again they will be wrong and any chance of us standing up together on our own two feet to fight this battle will be lost because half or less of us will be looking for a chariot to carry us away. Talk about living in LaLa Land!
I believe those of the Creationist persuasion contend that Neanderthal and Erectus are human variations. Howsomever, its possible that only homo sapien is true Adam and Eve human. In that case Neanderthal, Erectus and Homo Sapien were simply clay, i.e., risen apes, until spirit was breathed into a couple of homo sapiens and they became human.
Basically for the same reason why there's still an England.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?Joh 11:25-26
This is the death every man should fear:
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Re 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Re 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Rev.20:6,20:14,21:8
It is a code that if lived by would prevent man from performing the carnage on his fellow man that history clearly shows is his forte.
What you posted tells me that even if a person is born again and excepts Jesus Christ as his Savior it is already to late for them.
Ah, but there will always be an England.
WOW! A 5,600 year-old mammoth with tiny tusks! Either that or the putative neanderthals liked really stinky meat.
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